Sunday, September 03, 2006

Why we only take two-day long vacations

I forgot to pack a sippy cup for Lucy. She does OK with straws, but I also forgot that they aren't allowed at Zoos, and we were at the Toronto Zoo on Friday. We were managing pretty well with a plastic cup of milk until Cary said, "Hey, Lucy" and tried to snap a picture. Then the milk was all over both of us. Fortunately it was her last allotment, and there wasn't much in the cup at the time. I was just trying to avoid her having to wear smelly clothes the rest of the day since we weren't going to the hotel until later.

We managed to locate an Indian restaurant where Cary had fond memories of eating Chicken Curry when he was about Henry's age. About halfway through dinner Lucy began the familiar shriek of: "diaper, diaper!" We were in the middle of Toronto's Indian neighborhood, and the restaurant we were in was very casual. Not the kind of place with fold down changing tables in the restrooms. So Lucy and I wandered out and decided to try the Public library we had seen on our way in. It was closed, but its side yard was secluded. Lucy marched over, said, "grass, lay down." And I changed her right there. Hooray for the peaceful haven of the public library!

Then there was the sleeping. Or the not sleeping. Lucy has never slept in a bed before this trip. She wouldn't even look at the Pack-N-Play. She slept in one bed with Cary, and Henry and I slept in the other. I am sure every family sharing a hotel room works it a bit differently but in our family lights out was at 8:30. Which totally sucked for me. I don't think anyone slept much. Henry was too wound up. Lucy was too weirded out. Cary and I were both dealing with the uncomfortable surroundings and the constant interruptions. The second night of sleeping for Lucy was much better than the first, so maybe we are making slow gains in that direction.

Then there was the rain. Everything we had planned to do was supposed to be outside. I was not about to go lugging a two year old around a bunch of museums, so when it rained we went the only place we could go that was inside, free, and offered a second stroller to put Henry into: the Mall. It was the Eaton Centre, but it is just a big mall. We spent Saturday walking around inside after particularly terrible hotel breakfast. We didn't even really shop. Although I did find fun size Coffee Crisp at Shoppers drugmart. (For the non-WNY audience, Coffee Crisp is the candy Holy Grail) Thanks for the heads up, Jen14221! Then we took the kids to the hotel pool, play room, had an abysmal pizza dinner, then it was back to the Eaton Centre food court in search of ice cream.

Today was our last day and since it was still raining we abandoned all of our plans and came straight home. Straight is a bit of misnomer since we waited about one and a half hours to cross the border. The kids were very patient, and generally well-behaved. But I can't help feeling like we just bought the world's longest and most expensive Toronto zoo passes.

In all seriousness I would love to know how other people with kids do it? How do you travel? How do you actually get on a plane? When do you have fun? How do you sleep? This was only two days, and was planned deliberately to be "easy," and it still really stressed me and Cary out. I know it wasn't a complete waste because it was fun for the kids, particularly for Henry who knows what a hotel is, and was aware we were away etc.